


The Breaking (and repair) of Warren Kepler

by mens_enim_formicularum



Series: wolf 359 character studies [2]
Category: Wolf 359 (Radio)
Genre: M/M, Mutual Pining, alana maxwell is dead, alcoholism isnt cool, dont show up on your ex’s doorstep three years after you died, except when i do it, jacobi fixes his emotions with ✨alcohol✨, jacobi says fuck you im going to have boundries, kepler says pining rights, keplers an edgy bitch, sorry about that, this is why i kin jacobi, wine time baybe 😎
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-08
Updated: 2020-11-08
Packaged: 2021-03-09 00:00:19
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 716
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27461578
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mens_enim_formicularum/pseuds/mens_enim_formicularum
Summary: character study time because im really fucking depressed and the existential ennui hasnt been fixed by vodka yet so. kepcobi. yeah. this has some fluff though!!
Relationships: Daniel Jacobi/Warren Kepler
Series: wolf 359 character studies [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2002171
Kudos: 26





	The Breaking (and repair) of Warren Kepler

At the start he was whole. 

He had been broken by Cutter, ripped apart emotionally and physically and built back up a strong, very useful, resource for Goddard. He was alone, inhumane, and expendable; he was fine with it like this. He was whole, all scars and blood and cold calloused hands. He drank two fingers of whiskey every Friday evening, and never a drop more. 

The cracks begin to show. After Jaobi was recruited to the SI-5, and Kepler had a soft spot for the demolitions expert, his hard flame-scorched walls succumbed to weakness.  
Something about that moment, building wrapped inside a twisting mass of flame, Jacobi looking at the stars through a haze of smoke, the electric red shining off his cheekbones and illuminating the whites of his eyes; he was angelic. (Well, angelic in a rather demonic way, with his quick fingers and dark eyes and flashes of joy when he set off explosives, but angelic nonetheless.) 

He was even more cracked the night Jacobi kissed him, the night before they left earth. He pushed Jacobi away, told him he was going to regret this when he wasn’t drunk. He was wrong of course, Jacobi didn’t regret anything, and neither did he. They shared the bed that night (nothing happened of course) and they held each other close, Jacobi whispering sweet nothings and Kepler chuckling at him as they drifted off. He woke up alone. 

He was chipped apart, a shell of his former glory, when Maxwell died. He knew it was his fault, he could have stopped it, with only a small price to pay with Cutters tongue-lashing. But he had been a coward, and full of greed. A part of him thought, after she was dead, that Jacobi was his alone now. He didn’t like the implications of that thought, and so he shoved it down.  
He missed her. He missed seeing Jacobi happy.

He was broken, utterly ruined, when Jacobi said to shoot him. He wasn’t dead of course, but broken. That was also the moment he fell in love with Jacobi, the fire behind his eyes and his harsh broken voice. He almost wished Jacobi had the gun himself so he could be killed by him, but he wasn’t lucky enough to die then. And he would never be lucky enough to die at Jacobi’s hand, he wasn’t worthy of such a fate.

When he died the first time, it was quiet and very painful. The scotch was good. 

When he died the second time, it was loud and he refused to be hurt. He was suddenly alive and the first place he went was Jacobi’s flat. Apparently, it had been three years since the hephaestus landed (and an extra two and a half months since Alana had died) when he was alive again. Jacobi yelled at him, punched him in the jaw, punched him again to give him a black eye, called him a bastard and told him that her death was his fault. Told him to go back to his fucking grave and bury himself again before Jacobi did it for him.  
He was soft and broken when he saw the graves that night. Two full bottles of whiskey were carefully placed on his cold stone. Bloody handprints, presumably Jacobi’s, were staining the marble, and broken beer bottles, both new and old, surrounded his plot. Maxwell’s was clean, with flowers that couldn’t have been more than a week old, and a bracelet (three wires tightly braided with something he couldn’t make out scratched into the rubber) matching that which he had seen on Jacobi’s wrist that night was placed in front of her stone. 

He cried for the first time in ten years that night. For Maxwell, for Jacobi, and in a sickly moment of misguided pity, himself. 

He was whole again when Jacobi kissed him, for the first time in this new body. Jacobi shoved him away when he tried to kiss back, and quickly left with the neck of a bottle of merlot clutched in his fist and a thin sweater barely warm enough for the freezing winter air.

He wasn’t fixed, he wasn’t forgiven, he wasn’t even happy. But he was alive, and he was whole, and he had a small shred of hope.


End file.
